Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The Fiduciary Rule is the Obamacare of the Investment Industry

President
Trump signed a memorandum on February 3, 2017 which directs the Department of
Labor to undertake a new “economic and legal analysis” of a pending piece of
Dodd-Frank legislation - the new Department of Labor Fiduciary Rule - which was
to be implemented in April. The memorandum seeks to determine whether investors
and the financial industry have been and will be harmed by the directive, in
the areas of access to financial advice, access to investment products, job
loss within the financial industry, changes in investment costs and increased
litigation. Many news outlets misreported that the President issued an
executive order that halted implementation of the Fiduciary rule, but that was
not the case. “To the extent that the new analysis reveals problems, the Labor
secretary is directed to ‘publish for notice and comment a [new] proposed rule
rescinding or revising the rule.’” [more...]